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Valdorus
Brief History Valdorus, even while landlocked, was a technologically backwards and ignorant city. Fueled by fear of progress and of the unknown, the Valdoran government had placed strict restraints on any who would endeavor to develop new technologies. When the air of the surface began to fill with more acid than oxygen, it took a forceful overthrowing of the established government to get the city off the ground and to relative safety. Above the clouds, even though technology had saved hundreds of thousands of lives, the remaining fragments of the former rule demanded restrictions be put in place, albeit slightly less restrictive ones. The goal of the new and old rules was for the citizens of Valdorus to maintain their humanity, yet be able to use technology in the most limited sense to survive. For decades this was the status quo, that is until a young inventor by the name of Isambard Bronislav began toying with the current ideas and limitations of technology. The boy's first invention was a pair of mechanical arms which were affixed to the wearer's torso with a harness, giving them an extra pair of hands. The public was split down the middle on what this technology meant for their city. Half claimed that it was time to move forward into the next century, yet the other half claimed that this device was the first step to losing their humanity. The inventor ignored public's mixed reactions and continued to build. Within months of his first public reveal, Bronislav had created Valdorus's first functional mechanized man, capable of taking basic orders and carrying them out with little error. With the unveiling of Bronislav's Mechano-Man, the gears were set in motion that would turn Valdorus into the place it is today. More and more inventors came out of their shells and began to showcase their own inventions to the public. As they rise in inventors became more and more apparent, those against technology banded together to form a group known as The Freemen. They saw a perfect world where man could be free from technology, free to live their own lives far away from the corruption of industry and return to their roots. At first, The Freemen only staged protests and rallies against the inventors, only to be broken up by the government moments before the inventors presented their devices in the exact same spot. Without warning, The Freemen shifted their tactics, replacing peaceful protests with inciting riots among the populace and firebombing the homes of inventors. The government retaliated to the violent acts swiftly. A militia was formed by those loyal to the government and it was at this very point that The Great Steam War began. The first shots were fired by the Militia at the First Battle of Gorich Avenue, in which the Militia was lead to victory by the, then called, Great Technocrat Isambard Bronislav. This was the first of many victories to come in the blitz campaign that the Militia had launched, pushing the Freemen out of most of the island, cornering them in the Bio-Engineering District. Due to a failure in the communication line of the Militia, the operation which could have been the deathblow for the Freemen ended up turning into one of the greatest military failures in Valdoran history. Without proper intel, the Militia fell into ambush after ambush within the maze like streets of the Bio-Engineering District. To counteract this problem, massive artillery guns were positioned across from the district and proceeded to bombard the position, presumably to knock it from the sky. Before the artillery could do any substantial damage, a cell of Freemen soldiers assaulted the position. This gave a traitor among the Militia his chance to remove everything that the government and Militia stood for. Lieutenant Marko Stenham drove his sword into the heart of his superior officer, Isambard Bronislav and effectively ended the Great Steam War right then and there. With the cornerstone of the Militia defeated, the government stepped down; allowing the Freemen to take control. The new central government was set up within the Bio-Engineering District, as it had become like a home to them and what better way to honour those Freemen who gave their lives than to memorialize their greatest victory. With Grand Chancellor Marko Stenham their leader, the Freemen had complete control over Valdorus and its industry. Several years passed, Valdorus becoming more and more like its former self with the exception of a boom Bio-Engineering sector. The Freemen had found many a great project within the halls of their citadel: molecular structure of superior high altitude crops, easily producible protein substitutes and the codes for enhancing human DNA. The final discovery was kept only between the highest members of Freemen. Everything the Freemen had worked so hard to control seemed to be finally stabilized, until that is a skeleton in the closet opened the door. Whispers that Isambard Bronislav was alive echoed through the streets of Valdorus and tempers began to flare in the public. Sightings began to pop up from all over the city; some stating he was a ghost, others stating that he was an agent of the Maker here to destroy the Freemen for stifling technology, other still said that he was reborn through technology and was there to bring technology to the forefront once again. This sparked a fire within the technological community that had not been seen in years. The Technologist movement was born. Without regulations from their government, the Technologist created technologies that were not thought possible; massive steam walkers, steam soldiers and weapons that no Valdoran could have imagined were just a few of the feats the Technologists managed to create. The Freemen were trapped in between the iron fist of a soldier who never needed to eat or sleep and the endless drop to the surface below, desperate measures had to be taken. While the Technologists mobilized for war, The Freemen retreated deep within the district to put in order their last ditch plan. They would use the formula for altering DNA to create an army of extra-humans worthy to stand against the monstrosities of iron and steam that the Technologists were amassing all around the city. As the ramshackle iron soldiers of the Technologists stood outside the Bio-District, the Second Steam War was about to begin. The Freemen, now barely resembling human - more beast than man - charged through the streets towards the standing wall of iron. This was to be the bloodiest and longest battle in Valdoran history. Lasting a whole 3 months, the Freemen held the Iron Guard of the Technologists at bay before finally breaking through and running rampant through the city. You see, the problem with the Freemen's procedure of genetic modification was that it unlocked a primal part of the brain, increasing the aggression of the patient almost ten fold. With the Freeman government figures locked away within the confines of the Bio-engineering sector, all organization and order within Valdorus collapsed. As the years went by, the Technologists slowly became more and more militant, their government instituting policies that treated their citizens more like a resource than people. Policies that would force those in the military to undergo a set number of technological augmentations before they could serve would be put into effect. Great enzyme tanks, made to reprocess dead bodies into usable raw materials. Worst of all however, was the institution of the State Debt, a system that ensures that each citizen that follows the Technologist cause can be controlled through threat of death. The war still continues to this day, having claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Valdorus' citizens, the once peaceful, albeit knowingly backwards, city is a mere shell of its former self. TECHNOLOGISTS If one were to see a Technologist on Tot, they would call him or her a Tech Priest. An average Technologist has replaced almost all of its flesh with that of metal. The only Technologists that are not encased in massive metal shells are those who have seats in the Technologist Council, the leaders of the Technologists and their ambassadors. The main purpose of the Technologists is to rid their home of the Freeman threat. Over the course of the 90 year war, they have come very close to achieving said goal, but have never quite gotten it; always a Freeman hiding in a crevice deep within Valdorus, waiting to emerge once more when the time is right. The area which the Technologists hold is fairly small; only consisting of the main port of the island and the industrial area surrounding it. Being in a constant state of war, the Technologists, in the past, had to rely on trade to get the basic materials needed to keep their righteous crusade against the Freemen going. However, in the last decade, the Technologists found a simple, yet gruesome, solution to the problem. A great pre-war philosopher once said that "the human body contains enough iron for a single nail, enough miscellaneous minerals to create impure metals." Facing an enormous material shortage, one desperate engineer put the theory to the test. The man developed an enzyme that could break down organic material, allowing the metals from it to be harvested and smelted into new metals. This allowed the Technologists to become far more self-sufficient. As with all things however, the leaders saw this as a way to hold more control over their people. They introduced the "State Debt" system. Whenever anyone within the space that the Technologists controls uses any service that the government provides (i.e. food shelters, clothing vendors, shelter houses), that citizen has the charge marked up to their state debt. The only way to pay off one's state debt is through military service or through donation of raw materials. What kind of raw materials, you might be asking, and the answer is quite simple; dead bodies. This fact started a booming business in corpse collecting. Those who are down on their luck or looking for a free meal often find themselves beyond the walls of the Technologist stronghold, scrounging for dead bodies among No Man's land and even beyond The Edge, Freeman territory. Those who disobey the laws laid out by the Council, more often than not, find themselves having their raw materials being redistributed. In plain English, they find themselves being dumped into the great enzyme tanks. The Technologist guard can often be heard in the middle of the night breaking into citizen's homes, either taking them to the conscription office to remove their debt or being taken to the enzyme tanks for missing a payment, citizen's choice. If a child's parent dies and there is not another family member to take on their debt, the child is taken to the factories where the parts of the Technologists are assembled. This gives the child to live debt free in a relatively safe environment, meals and shelter provided as long as they work. Ever since becoming self-sufficient, the Technologists have taken a different stance on travellers and trading with them. In the old days, they would trade various technologies, weapons mainly, for the basic materials needed to live. Their current policy has the Technologists lure the travellers on to the island, detain them, take any materials on board the ship before ripping the ship apart for materials, then proceed to send the travellers to the enzyme tanks. Needless to say, the Valdoran tourist trade isn't exactly booming. FREEMEN AND THE ORIGIN At the beginning of the war, from within the Bioengineering Sector, the Freemen spliced their human DNA with that of animals. At first glance, one would merely call a Freeman an X, they would be largely correct, except for one crucial difference. When the Freemen spliced the DNA of animals with their own, it was not a slow change, the process they used caused what could be called "explosive mutagenic evolution". The process gave their bodies much of the traits that the implanted DNA carried, strength, reflexes, adaptations; but the process destroyed their minds. Many of the Freemen went insane after the process, devolving into feral beasts. In the beginning they warned that technology would steal a person's humanity, but in their righteous cause, they found another way. For decades, the Freemen functioned in complete disarray. There was no thought in their movements, no strategy in their attacks, no attempt to communicate the Technologists' surrender. The Technologists came to accept this as the norm and exterminated them as such. Only 15 years ago, something changed within in the Freemen and Valdorus itself. The first sign were the plants. Somewhere within the Bioengineering Sector, still the home to the Freemen, strange plants began to grow. Within the span of a month, half of Valdorus was practically a jungle. The second sign was the near disappearance of the Freemen. As the vegetation slowly made its advance through the island, sightings of the Freemen became less and less common. The third and final sign came during a conflict between the two opposing factions. The Freemen were attacking the Technologists at their weak points, something which had never happened before. A second more disturbing revelation came as one of the Freemen was struck down. As the Technologist crushed it beneath his foot, the body of the Freeman let loose a cloud of spores. Nothing seemed to happen at first, but as the Technologist tried to move forward, the vegetation that was slowly consuming his form became more and more evident. The Technologists fell one by one, completely unaware that they were killing themselves. As the last Technologist was slowly over taken by the flora, something began to grow in the clearing before it. A single huge red and purple flower, supported by a long stem, bent double from its weight. To the amazement of the Technologists, frozen in place by the vegetation, the flower began to open, its petals pulling apart. Slowly from the centre of the flower, a face began to form. Then a head and neck; soon the entire top half of a man. Without a sound the flower gave birth to a man made entirely of flora. His eyes were two flowers opening and shutting their petals. His lips roots, curling in a self assured smug smile. Likewise his body was made out of a hundred different pieces of plant life. For a moment, there was nothing but a stunned silence. And then the figure spoke. It called itself The Origin, the Freemen its children and the vegetation its will. It is theorized that the Origin is one of the Freeman government figures that had locked itself within the Bio Sector at the beginning of the war. It is believed that the Freeman spliced its DNA with that of a plant, something that had never been recorded occurring in the past. Top Technologist scientists have determined that due to the unstable nature of the Freemen's DNA, when the spores from The Origin was introduced and the second bout of explosive mutagenic change, the spores brought the frenzied minds of the Freemen under control, planting a suggestion in their vulnerable minds. The spores had a very similar effect on the bodies of the Freemen, giving them more plant-like features. Additional Information Timeline of Current War Military Strategy